The UK crowd at ESL One Birmingham were treated to the kind of Dota 2 excitement you normally only get at events like The International. Gambit played their hearts out to defeat two heavyweights of the Dota world, Team Liquid and then Vici Gaming. They earned the respect of the players and the love of this packed audience in Arena Birmingham.
I had counted out Gambit after seeing some middling performances in the group stages. Despite a roster of amazing talent, faces we’ve seen for years in the Dota scene, and a healthy organisation backing them, I still felt that success for this CIS group was going to be elusive. They proved me wrong yesterday.
Before Gambit took on Vici Gaming I managed to take a minute of Tobiwan’s time before entering the commentary booth. I was sceptical of Gambit’s ability to beat Vici but Tobi set me straight. Turned out he was spot on with his prediction.
2019 has been a rollercoaster year for Gambit already. They began strong with wins against OG, NIP and FWD at WePlay Winter Madness. Then they took decent finishes in the Minors and also a very respectable 2nd place at ESL One Katowice. But since then this CIS team has been relatively quiet up until now. When Virtus.pro declined the invitation to ESL One Birmingham citing scheduling issues, Gambit took the opportunity to make their comeback.
Gambit play with a very old-school CIS mentality. The idea is to be always ready to battle and overwhelm your opponent by giving them too much to worry about. It’s a form of organised chaos that was perfected in that region but disappeared with the fortunes of teams like Na’Vi and Empire. With the 7.22 patch in full effect, Gambit have found a new lease of life here at ESL One Birmingham.
Gambit will face the winner of TNC Predator and Team Secret later today. We have the latest schedule, stream and betting right here at Luckbox.
